Lord of the Flies

William Golding

• Born September 19, 1911 in Cornwall, England

• He attended both Malboro and Oxford Colleges, but he graduated from Oxford

• He studied natural science and English

•Golding trained as a scientist, briefly worked as an actor, and finally settled on being a teacher,•During World War II, Golding joined the Royal Navy.•After seeing the atrocities of war first hand, Golding’s opinion of man changed after he witnessed the evil of war from both sides. He no longer believed that humans beings were inherently good.

•After the war, Golding resumed teaching and began writing novels and published an anthology of poems.•Lord of the Flies was written in 1954, during The Cold War.•Golding won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983.

•Golding died in 1993—he was considered one of the most acclaimed writers in England

What should you come to understand by the end of this

unit? • Man’s capacity for evil• The true nature of humans has perplexed

thinkers for thousands of years.• Novelists often use their fiction to make

statements about their personal or political beliefs.

The novel takes place during a fictional nuclear war.A group of British schoolboys are flown out of their country to “protect” them from the horrors of war.

Lord of the Flies

However, their plane crashes, killing all the adults on board.

The boys remain stranded on the tropical island to fend for

themselves…

Lord of the Flies

In Golding’s day a popular boys adventure story was…

• The Coral Island• Written in 1858, it’s a

lighthearted tale about boys stranded on a deserted, tropical island.• The major characters are Jack, Ralph, and Peterkin.• It’s an adventure story with

hidden treasure and a happy ending.

Is Lord of the Flies like The Coral Island?

Golding wrote Lord of the Flies in response to

The Coral Island and how he felt

boys would really behave if stranded on an

island.

Is man essentially good or evil?

Kohlberg’s Stages of Morality

Charles Darwin

• English naturalist (1809-1882)• Says that the question is really beside

the point—people are neither good or bad, they are most like animals.

• Believed in the idea of the survival of the fittest.

• Like animals, people bring certain knowledge into the world—instincts.

Darwin continued:

• Categories for instincts:1. Eating2. Self-defense3. Propagation of the species4. Maternal instincts5. Territorial imperative (defending one’s

territory)

Sigmund Freud• Austrian psychiatrist (1856-1939)• Believes in 3 components of the human mind:

1. ID—functions in the irrational and emotional part of the mind. It is the primitive mind and is concerned only with the pleasure principle—I want it and I want it now!

2. EGO—functions with the rational mind. The EGO’s job is to get the ID’s pleasures while negotiating the long-term consequences. It denies instant gratification and pious delay of gratification.

3. SUPEREGO—the moral part of the mind. It is the embodiment of parental and societal values—it stores and enforces the rules. Its power to enforces rules comes from its ability to create anxiety.